The present invention relates to fat blends suitable, amongst other things for manufacturing margarine and w/o spreads having a lower fat content than margarine but otherwise having similar plastic spreading properties, also to a method of preparing such fat blends, to margarine fat containing such fat blend and to fat products, in particular margarine and w/o spreads prepared therewith.
Despite the great variety of fat blends for margarine and suchlike fat spreads some consumers express various requirements for such fat blends such as vegetable origin, high level of unsaturated fatty acids and a low level of trans-unsaturated fatty acids, e.g. below 10%, preferably below 5%, particularly below 2% and most preferred between 0 and 1%.
It does not need explanation that the usual requirements of easy spreadability, and good organoleptic properites including good mouthfeel should be met.
EP-A-70,050 discloses randomly interesterifying a mixture of 45-75% oil having at least 20% linoleic acid and 25-55% of a fat having at least 80% saturated fatty acids having a chain length of 16 C-atoms or more, fractionating this mixture to obtain a stearin and an olein fraction, the latter having a solids fat content:
N.sub.10 =25-53 PA1 N.sub.20 =8-28 PA1 N.sub.30 =1-6 PA1 N.sub.35 =0-4 PA1 (1) interesterifyinq a mixture containing 30-55 wt % of a liquid vegetable oil (i) and 45-70 wt % of a fat (ii) in which at least 80% of the fatty acid residues is saturated and has a chain length of at least 16 carbon atoms; PA1 (2) fractionating the interesterified mixture thus obtained to obtain an olein having the following solid fat content: PA1 N.sub.10 =10-50 PA1 N.sub.20 =5-30 PA1 N.sub.30 =0-11 PA1 N.sub.10 =16-45 PA1 N.sub.20 =5-20 PA1 N.sub.30 =0-8 PA1 N.sub.35 =&lt;5
and mixing 50-90% of this olein with 10-50% of an oil having at least 40% linoleic acid.
The solid fats content in this description and claims is being expressed as N-value, essentially as defined in Fette, Seifen, Anstrichmittel 80 180-186 (1978), although modified as regards temperature stabilisation: the samples were stabilized at 0.degree. C. for 16 hours and tempered as described for 1/2 h at the respective measuring temperatures.
EP-A-109,721 describes a similar process, wherein at least 20% of the olein fraction is mixed with 0-60% of the esterified mixture and 0-65% of an oil having no solids at 10.degree. C. or a mixture of such oil with an oil having a melting point of 28-43.degree. C. As exemplified, the margarine fats of EP-A-109,721 comprise components originating from sunflower oil hydrogenated to a slip melting point of 32.degree. C., incorporated either as such or as a component of the mixture that is interesterified. As a result, the margarines comprise 9-12% trans fatty acid calculated on the margarine fat. The olein fractions exemplified have N.sub.20 values of 23.3 and 7.9, the prescribed solid content values for the olein are N.sub.10 =25-60, N.sub.20 =8-30, N.sub.30 =1-7, N.sub.35 =0-4.
Although with these processes considerable progress as regards increase of unsaturates content and with the former reduction of trans content can be achieved, are improvements still possible, also as regards spreadability and organoleptic properties.
Notably, the variety of products that can be produced with the olein fractions as described in these references is relatively small, limiting their usefulness. The approach taken in these disclosures results in rather high costs related to the specific properties of the applied fractionation processes. With the process of EP-A-70,050 it was found in some cases not to be possible for a pre-required firmness at ambient temperature, to achieve good spreadability at refrigerator temperature. Also the perceived coolness upon eating the product was found to be sub-optimal. With respect to these last two issues, we found that better, but still not optimal results can be achieved with the process of EP-A-109,721, however, this is achieved by incorporating some trans fatty acid into the product. There is a consumer need for products with a still lower content of trans fatty acids than those of EP-A-109,721 and of the combined amount of saturated and trans fatty acids than those of both EP-A-70,050 and EP-A109,721.